During the summer I made a decision to take on an internship at the Global Education and Leadership Foundation in Delhi. I was given this opportunity through the LIFE Challenge@UWCSEA a competition held in our school in order to promote the sustainable development goals. After putting hard work into the project me and my team focused on I was offered the opportunity to take on a new challenge to expand my boundaries. I was initially skeptical of going because I would not be with any family and was going to live and work with people I had never met before. After much consideration, I decided that it would be in my best interest to go to Delhi by myself and spend a month with the foundation.

During my time there I worked on the planning for the annual flagship conference LIFE (leadership innovative for excellence). I spent my time there working on an event that displayed a multitude of different social enterprises working to better society. I also helped with the creation of the LIFE Challenge@Delhi in which young leaders came together to take on a project with the intention of creating a market proposal.

On reflection, upon coming home it was truly an experience of a life time. People that I had never met became friends that I will never forget. Although it is a lot and lots of work and very late hours every second of it was worth it. To work at tGELF mean you have to always give it your 110%. Often times it means you will have to work till well into the night sometimes past midnight. If you are willing to put in the work the reward will be the experience of a lifetime. I cannot express how grateful I am to the amazing people I was able to work with during my time there.

If you are ever presented with this opportunity you should take it because the amount that you will learn is truly remarkable and the friends you will make are some of the best people in the world. I consider myself to have been truly privileged to have received this opportunity.

Welcome to the third meeting of the Culture Club@IDEAS Hub! It is a group of enthusiasts who love food and experimenting with different cooking techniques. The first 2 meetings were all about kefirs. Easy and yummy stuff. Somehow it always turned into a breakfast club as sour bread dough was passed around. Mr Geoff Leeming does make a mean creme fraiche that goes well with the bread.

The third one on the 19th of August was slightly more adventurous! It really started out with the question of "How can we make salmon even tastier?" Also, prior to this one of the volunteers shared many pictures of his cured pork belly which led to an easy peasy 10 min demo on salmon curing!

2 parts sugar, 1 part kosher salt, lots of dill and szechuan pepper for that kick. Be very generous with your seasoning! Then wrap it tightly in 2 layers of plastic wrap. Leave it in the fridge for 2 days then wash it off. Ta-da! It'll be ready to eat with your bagels or on your salads.

A huge shoutout to Mr Jens Zietz for sharing his recipe with us! Looking forward to more sessions with different types of foods and fermentation techiques.

When you think of what a SmartCity is, the natural inclination would be to imagine driverless cars whizzing through streets, bike sharing schemes, talking fridges, and the use of Big Data as big brother. Such a utopian (or dystopian) vision is largely based on technology - specifically information and communication technology (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT), and imagines a future where lives are made easier and more productive – thanks to technology.

However, amongst all the talk of technological innovations in SmartCities, it is easy to overlook the important roles governance, culture and community engagement plays in enabling smart practices to take place. Furthermore, as the needs of city dwellers around the world vary, so too do definitions of what makes a SmartCity.

In his sharing on the 18th of March, Prof Pomeroy considered different case studies from his TV series, SmartCities 2.0, from around the World. He shared with participants how he investigated their unique characteristics, and ultimately ask whether such environments really enhance our daily lives.

Prof Pomeroy was candid and passionate about cities. As a trained architect, he showed us sketches of urban environments around the world. Sustainability plays a huge part of the lives of the UWCSEA community. His talk was well attended by many staff, students and parents alike.

If you would like to watch his documentary, you can visit his website or at Toggle.

A few weeks back I had a fantastic opportunity to work with Intel and Makedemy as a Catalyst Trainee over the course of a week. Each catalyst had been selected over the past weeks through an interview process that consisted of team building activities as well as an engaging facilitation task. I was lucky to be part of this and get through the interview process along with 15 - 17 others from varied backgrounds - High School students, College Graduates etc.

I wasn't sure what to expect from those 5 days but during the course of those days, I learned so much more than I had expected. On the first day, our hosts were helping us get familiarized with the basic Hardware and Software portions that we were going to look deeper into during the week through a game. This game lasted 90 minutes and kept us on our toes with the exciting puzzles and schematic diagrams we were presented with. We were able to enjoy with our groups but also learn a lot through the process of this game.

After this, we were introduced more to the Maker Movement, a growing craze in Singapore. The following few days we were given the opportunity to design our own game that met certain learning objectives but also kept the attendees occupied and challenged them. This was certainly a task - harder than what it seems. Furthermore, we were also presented with the opportunity to facilitate a session with a group of local school Teachers. This was quite an interesting experience, helping us get ready for our 48 hours of working as facilitators! Towards the end, we were introduced to the Social Change project we each had to do and this was certainly an exciting end to the week.

Throughout the week, I learned so much more about Tech and how Tech really can help us solve the problems whether it being 3D printing Prosthetic arms or building a Braille Printer for the Blind, it enables us to do so much more. I am really inspired by this experience and hope to take it forward with me on my Tech Journey.